Eratosthenes first measured the circumference of the earth from the shadows cast by the sun. Today, humanity's fitness to survive will be measured by our ability to conquer that same thermonuclear fusion that casts those shadows. Thus, Prometheus will truly be unbound.

"The mind is a compact, multiply connected thought mass with internal connections of the most intimate kind. It grows continuously as new thought masses enter it, and this is the means by which it continues to develop."

Bernhard Riemann On Psychology and Metaphysics ca. 1860

Today's Elites

Sunday, January 30, 2011

More Lilliputian Tales

"Real Time" host Bill Maher asked Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) a fairly straightforward question: "Do you believe in evolution?" Kingston not only said rejects the foundation of modern biology, he explained it this way: "I believe I came from God, not from a monkey." He added, "If it happened over millions and millions of years, there should be lots of fossil evidence."

Seriously, that's what he said.

Let's pause to appreciate the fact that it's the 21st century -- and Jack Kingston is a 10-term congressman who helps oversee federal funding on the Food and Drug Administration.

As part of the same discussion, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell tried to ask Kingston about the overuse of antibiotics. The far-right congressman had no idea how the question related to evolution.

At one point, Kingston, sarcastically, turned to National Review's Will Cain, part of the same roundtable, and said, "Will, help me out anytime you want, buddy."

The assumption, of course, is that Cain, a conservative, must agree with the confused congressman about modern science. Cain responded, "I'm sorry, I believe in evolution."

Will, you're not the one who should be sorry.

In the larger context, there's a renewed push underway for the United States to value and appreciate science in the 21st century -- our future depends on it. And while this push is underway, Republican leaders are more comfortable walking a bridge to the 18th century.

What an embarrassment.

This tired, phony debate that is so often trotted out is wrong on both sides...Liberals are constitutionally incapable of conceiving the difference between humanity and animals. They just adore the sentiment of John Lennon's charming lullaby: "Why don't we just do it on the road?" Pious Conservatives on the other hand are quite religious: they fervently worship one god...Mammon.

A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH

By the blue taper's trembling light,

No more I waste the wakeful night,Intent with endless view to poreThe schoolmen and the sages o'er:Their books from wisdom widely stray,Or point at best the longest way.I'll seek a readier path, and goWhere wisdom's surely taught below.

How deep yon azure dyes the sky,Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,While through their ranks in silver prideThe nether crescent seems to glide!The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,The lake is smooth and clear beneath,Where once again the spangled showDescends to meet our eyes below.The grounds which on the right aspire,In dimness from the view retire:The left presents a place of graves,Whose wall the silent water laves.That steeple guides thy doubtful sight,Among the livid gleams of night.There pass, with melancholy state,By all the solemn heaps of fate,And think, as softly-sad you treadAbove the venerable dead,'Time was, like thee they life possess'd,And time shall be, that thou shalt rest.'

Those graves, with bending osier bound,That nameless heave the crumbled ground,Quick to the glancing thought discloseWhere Toil and Poverty repose.

The flat smooth stones that bear a name,The chisel's slender help to fame,Which, e'er our set of friends decay,Their frequent steps may wear away,A middle race of mortals own,Men half-ambitious, all unknown.

The marble tombs that rise on high,Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,Whose pillars swell with sculptured stones,Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones;--These (all the poor remains of state)Adorn the rich, or praise the great;Who while on earth in fame they live,Are senseless of the fame they give.

Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades,The bursting earth unveils the shades!All slow, and wan, and wrapp'd with shrouds,They rise in visionary crowds,And all with sober accent cry,'Think, mortal, what it is to die!'

Now from yon black and funeral yew,That bathes the charnal-house with dew,Methinks I hear a voice begin;(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din,Ye tolling clocks, no time resoundO'er the long lake and midnight ground!)It sends a peal of hollow groans,Thus speaking from among the bones:

'When men my scythe and darts supply,How great a king of fears am I!They view me like the last of things:They make, and then they dread, my stings.Fools! if you less provoked your fears,No more my spectre-form appears.Death's but a path that must be trod,If man would ever pass to God:A port of calms, a state of easeFrom the rough rage of swelling seas.

Nor can the parted body know,Nor wants the soul these forms of woe:As men who long in prison dwell,With lamps that glimmer round the cell,Whene'er their suffering years are run,Spring forth to greet the glittering sun:Such joy, though far transcending sense,Have pious souls at parting hence.On earth, and in the body placed,A few, and evil years, they waste:But when their chains are cast aside,See the glad scene unfolding wide,Clap the glad wing and tower away,And mingle with the blaze of day!'

Thomas Parnell

For Annie

Thank Heaven! the crisis-The danger is past,And the lingering illnessIs over at last-And the fever called "Living"Is conquered at last.

Sadly, I knowI am shorn of my strength,And no muscle I moveAs I lie at full length-But no matter!-I feelI am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,Now, in my bedThat any beholderMight fancy me dead-Might start at beholding me,Thinking me dead.

For now, while so quietlyLying, it fanciesA holier odorAbout it, of pansies-A rosemary odor,Commingled with pansies-With rue and the beautifulPuritan pansies.

And so it lies happily,Bathing in manyA dream of the truthAnd the beauty of Annie-Drowned in a bathOf the tresses of Annie.

She tenderly kissed me,She fondly caressed,And then I fell gentlyTo sleep on her breast-Deeply to sleepFrom the heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,She covered me warm,And she prayed to the angelsTo keep me from harm-To the queen of the angelsTo shield me from harm.

And I lie so composedly,Now, in my bed,(Knowing her love)That you fancy me dead-And I rest so contentedly,Now, in my bed,(With her love at my breast)That you fancy me dead-That you shudder to look at me,Thinking me dead.

But my heart it is brighterThan all of the manyStars in the sky,For it sparkles with Annie-It glows with the lightOf the love of my Annie-With the thought of the lightOf the eyes of my Annie.

Edgar Allan Poe

ODE TO THE WEST WIND.

This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.

The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathises with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it.